So if Trump wins you want to go to Canada?

Ozoneranger wrote:

Some Irish folk will take Trump expats, too. I just got back from there two days ago.

Epic vacation, great people, great beer…even the driving on the left from the right seat was enjoyable…

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What was the most memorable thing about the trip?

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zn wrote:

If trump wins I will not move to Canada.

However, I might move Canada.

Just to be on the safe side.

Put it in the Atlantic next to Maine. We could load up on Swish and lobster for the road-trip to Ireland.

waterfield wrote:

The trouble with driving in Ireland -especially along the coast-is the narrowness of the roads and the huge tour buses that take no prisoners. More than once I had to pull off into the hillside while a buss barely passed going the other way. I mean I felt for sure it would hit us-and there was a cliff looking straight down into the ocean. More than once I pulled over and said to my wife-you drive I can’t take it any more.

The pubs are great but don’t expect your Guiness to be served immediately after they pour it. Something about the nitrogen has to sit and sit and sit and…

We were there researching my wife’s heritage. Turns out the public records were useless. However, the Catholic Church kept track of everyone leaving the country even before the Potato famine-which is when my wife’s distant relatives left. And guess where they arrived.?Not Ellis Island but New Orleans. After working on the railroads they somehow managed to end up in San Francisco.

Yes, I’ve had the white-knuckle experience of driving in Ireland.

I loved Ireland, unfortunately our trip was cut short after getting word from our dog sitter that our 12 year old German Shepherd, Alex had stopped eating. He had been getting sicker for some time but seemed to be doing better prior to our trip. The trip had been booked for months so we thought it might be safe to go. But when we heard he had stopped eating we knew something was up. That dog was so food driven he could happily eat during an amputation. We came home to a dog whose organs had shut down and who could barely move. We comforted him as best we could before taking our final trip to the vet. Sitting with him while his life ended was the most painful event of my life.

Anyway, I’d like to go back but unfortunately my wife has a bad association with Ireland now. One of about a billion interesting little tidbits about Ireland I picked up…all the palm trees. Many people have palm trees in their gardens. I’ve always heard that Ireland is basically tundra but palm trees can thrive because it never gets real cold. Rarely below freezing even in the winter.

Sorry about your German Shepherd. When they stop eating and stop their BMs their lives are nearing the end especially if they stop drinking water. How old was your dog ? I know how painful it is to lose a loved pet. In my life I’ve had to put down 5 dogs and a couple of cats. My present living one is a 5 yr old Springer Spaniel. I know if I lost her it would be devastating just as the last dog I lost.

Hopefully you and your wife can return to Ireland and finish that vacation. One of the farm stays (we call them B & Bs here) was owned by a man who was part of the O’Malley family and where Edwin Joseph O’Malley the father of Walter O’Malley-the owner of the Dodgers allegedly was born The room we stayed in had so much Dodger memorabilia it made me dizzy looking at all the stuff.

We traveled pretty much around the southwest part of the Island mainly because we were researching my wife’s family and they left from Cork for New Orleans on a sailing vessel of all things. They were poor and needed work and even before the great potato family there was little if any work in Ireland. They packed up their entire family -small kids and all-to sail across the Atlantic to an unknown land not having any idea about what they would do here. Imagine the courage to do that. But maybe they had no choice.

Very true about those narrow roads. I was warned, and made sure I rented a very small car. Was also warned about the tour buses, and that if you want to drive the Ring of Kerry — one of the most beautiful places on earth — you should always make sure you go in the same direction as those tour buses. I elected instead to get on one of those buses, temporarily stopping my self-drive travel.

It was a great idea, leaving the driving to others, and being much higher up in the bus meant I could see over the stone walls which are everywhere.

Also learned that you can’t really depend on maps to get from A to B. You need nearly play by play directions, because there are so many road digressions — which kinda fits in with Irish Story-telling itself.

Yep, it takes time to get your Guinness. Mostly, because of pride. They want it to look as good as it tastes, I’m guessing.

Also, I stayed in B and B’s too, except in Dublin. And they were almost all working farms. I had the best breakfast of my entire life at one in Grange, near Ardmore. Everything was home-made and beyond “locally sourced” as is the current rage (luckily) in America now. It was sourced from the working farm itself. The bread, the bacon, the milk, the yogurt, the pancakes. Nothing could have been “fresher” there.

Only had one tricky moment where I forgot to drive on the left side of the road, pulling out of the small “mall.” The driver on the other end of my goof was decent, after slamming on his horn. He must have thought, “stupid Americans.” But he was decent and I didn’t make that mistake again. Ireland was so beautiful and the people were amazing. In shape, too. They walk or bike everywhere, it seems. You rarely run into “obese” Irish.

We spent all of our time in the south, south west and west of Ireland. We were supposed to be there for 2 weeks but left after 10 days because of our dog. We also stayed in BnB’s. Instead of driving the ring of Kerry we did the ring of Beara. The locals recommended it as being less touristy. It was beautiful. Ireland has the prettiest scenery I’ve ever experienced. My favorite memory happened while in Limerick. We watched their hurling team defeat Tipperary. We were in a pub with a bunch of locals. The atmosphere in the pub was every bit as intense as you see in a bar in Pittsburgh when the Steelers are playing. The locals happily answered all my questions about the match and were very patient with my ignorance. They even had my back when a German tourist made a snide remark to me about American football.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by nittany ram.

The countryside. The Emerald Island was aptly named.

I gave busses and lorries (those bastards are huge and intimidating when coming at you) a wide berth…as much as you can on some of those narrow roads. The white-knuckle drive was from Killarney to the port of Doolin…misty and a bit rainy. Needed a few whiskeys after that jaunt.

Billy_T wrote:

Oh, and I also learned that it’s not such a great idea to drive in Dublin, unless you’re ready for total insanity. At least when I was there, they made New York City drivers look like scared old folks in comparison. And the motorcyclists made the car drivers look like they were standing still. Better to start your self-driving trip outside the city.

My people came from Cork, Killarney and Tipperary. Got to see all three places, but regret not taking the time to research the family history. Also regret not being able to see Yeats Country, County Sligo. Will definitely see it next time.

Perhaps the most magical (and emotional) moment for me — and there were many — was seeing the Cliffs of Moher, while hearing the ethereal notes and singing of a loverly harp player sitting on the stones there. Looking out at the sea, the cliffs, and thinking about the recent diagnosis (this was 2003) of my Stage Four cancer. It was all too much, but in the best possible way.

We visited Cork and Killarney, Bunratty and Ashford Castles and Sligo. One of the reasons I went was my dad was adopted and we recently found documents indicating my bio-grandfather was Irish. I did an Ancestry.com search but hit dead ends, so I sent in a DNA test. I’ll have the results in a few weeks.

Dublin traffic- you’re right…crazy drivers. Worse than LA. Cork city center was the same. Insane.

The thing about Trump , the ban Muslims racist shit, he cannot do without a constitutional amendment.Hillary can and will take us to war just as she has done in the past. If you listened to her disgusting speech at AIPAC you know the extermination of Palestinians will continue but she actually knows how to do it where Trump will sink or swim but he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. Neither one even knows a working class person, much less prepared to fight for them.Trump is a climate change denier and Clinton is a pro-fracking privatizing Mexico’s oil shill for all the worst corporations on the planet. Would you like a migraine or a toothache ? If and when Bernie is out Jill Stein is the only sane choice.

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

The thing about Trump , the ban Muslims racist shit, he cannot do without a constitutional amendment.Hillary can and will take us to war just as she has done in the past. If you listened to her disgusting speech at AIPAC you know the extermination of Palestinians will continue but she actually knows how to do it where Trump will sink or swim but he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. Neither one even knows a working class person, much less prepared to fight for them.Trump is a climate change denier and Clinton is a pro-fracking privatizing Mexico’s oil shill for all the worst corporations on the planet. Would you like a migraine or a toothache ? If and when Bernie is out Jill Stein is the only sane choice.

That’s what grabs me. I totally to NOT support Trump.

However, I am also completely UNMOVED by the fearmongering of the Clinton campaign.

Half to most of Trump’s ideas he can’t do without Congress and they won’t do it. So he can be a boogeyman…boogey, boogey, boogey!

What scares the shit out of me is that Hillary Clinton can totally do most if not all of the shit she wants to do and that’s up to and including the NO FLY zone in Syria that equates to a proxy war with Russia that could become an outright war with Russia seeing as there’s no way Russia ever gives up their only blue water port in the Med which means they’ll never let Assad lose power unless they have a plan of succession in place that allows them to keep that port.

Sec Clinton has already said she wants to go back to Libya AND go back into Iraq to fight ISIL. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a fucking warmongering nutjob.

If one cares about ALL human life, it’s actually a serious argument that Hillary Clinton is the more dangerous of the two choices.

I’ll be desperately hoping for the good Lord, the Universe and or Lady Luck to step in and elevate Bernie Sanders. If (and likely when) that doesn’t happen, I’ll just vote Jill Stein with a clear conscience and try and survive like I did with the other corporatist warmongers that came before.

bnw wrote:

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

The thing about Trump , the ban Muslims racist shit, he cannot do without a constitutional amendment.Hillary can and will take us to war just as she has done in the past. If you listened to her disgusting speech at AIPAC you know the extermination of Palestinians will continue but she actually knows how to do it where Trump will sink or swim but he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. Neither one even knows a working class person, much less prepared to fight for them.Trump is a climate change denier and Clinton is a pro-fracking privatizing Mexico’s oil shill for all the worst corporations on the planet. Would you like a migraine or a toothache ? If and when Bernie is out Jill Stein is the only sane choice.

There’s nothing racist with Trump’s position on Muslim immigration. The FBI said that they are unable to vet these people because most have no documentation and the few that do could possess ISIS issued Syrian passports. Trump wants a temporary halt to Syrian immigration until these people can be reliably vetted.

bnw wrote:

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

The thing about Trump , the ban Muslims racist shit, he cannot do without a constitutional amendment.Hillary can and will take us to war just as she has done in the past. If you listened to her disgusting speech at AIPAC you know the extermination of Palestinians will continue but she actually knows how to do it where Trump will sink or swim but he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. Neither one even knows a working class person, much less prepared to fight for them.Trump is a climate change denier and Clinton is a pro-fracking privatizing Mexico’s oil shill for all the worst corporations on the planet. Would you like a migraine or a toothache ? If and when Bernie is out Jill Stein is the only sane choice.

There’s nothing racist with Trump’s position on Muslim immigration. The FBI said that they are unable to vet these people because most have no documentation and the few that do could possess ISIS issued Syrian passports. Trump wants a temporary halt to Syrian immigration until these people can be reliably vetted.

I guess technically you’re right Islam is not a race and there are Asian Muslims,African Muslims and European Muslims but that is not a reasonable defense it is still bigotry and he has made many racist statements directed a Latinos as well as Asians,Arabs even Native Americans add to that his “birther” nonsense and you get just what he is a bigoted racist asshole with the vocabulary of a 5th grade bully and intellect to match.That’s why he doesn’t scare me. I loath Clinton but she is a very smart lawyer that knows how to get around laws, cover her ass and keep doing whatever she wants to do. So far that’s been illegal coups,wars, arms deals and forcing fracking on the planet to go along with selling off any hope of democracy to the highest bidders on Wall St.

Mac: Me thinks you write with forked pen.

On the one hand lament Clinton’s “fear mongering”.

Then you write: “What scares the shit out of me is that Hillary Clinton can totally do most if not all of the shit she wants to do and that’s up to and including the NO FLY zone in Syria that equates to a proxy war with Russia that could become an outright war with Russia seeing as there’s no way Russia ever gives up their only blue water port in the Med which means they’ll never let Assad lose power unless they have a plan of succession in place that allows them to keep that port.

Sec Clinton has already said she wants to go back to Libya AND go back into Iraq to fight ISIL. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a fucking warmongering nutjob.

If one cares about ALL human life, it’s actually a serious argument that Hillary Clinton is the more dangerous of the two choices.”

As far as expressions that you might characterize as her “fearmongering ” she can’t even compete with you.

Such nonsense/

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by waterfield.

bnw wrote:

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

I guess technically you’re right Islam is not a race and there are Asian Muslims,African Muslims and European Muslims but that is not a reasonable defense it is still bigotry and he has made many racist statements directed a Latinos as well as Asians,Arabs even Native Americans add to that his “birther” nonsense and you get just what he is a bigoted racist asshole with the vocabulary of a 5th grade bully and intellect to match.That’s why he doesn’t scare me. I loath Clinton but she is a very smart lawyer that knows how to get around laws, cover her ass and keep doing whatever she wants to do. So far that’s been illegal coups,wars, arms deals and forcing fracking on the planet to go along with selling off any hope of democracy to the highest bidders on Wall St.

It amazes me that I have to possess documentation and get irradiated in whole body scanners by my government and searched by my government merely to get on a plane. Then to go to another country I have to have a valid passport, necessary vaccinations, return plane ticket and visa. Yet people like you want anyone else to come here without any of the above requirements whether by US taxpayer paid flight or US government assisted walk across the border. Outbreaks of disease from these unscreened people doesn’t bother you? That 22% of refugees tested in MN have latent TB doesn’t bother you?

BTW calling Trump or anyone else a racist doesn’t work. The left has gone there so long so often it means nothing. If anything it gets people to vote for the candidate refusing to wallow in the cesspool of PC.

What I want is the for the government to stop making refugees in the first place.I would prefer aircraft not being flown other than for emergencies. I would like to see global shipping eliminated and local sustainable economy be the model that replaces the insanity of the current economic model. Having sponsored my wife’s immigration I can tell you that you don’t have to go through anything near what your average immigrant does. No the TB scare is another racist tactic and is not based in reality. My wife is a tb survivor both her mother and sister didn’t make it. She went through an exhaustive screening process just to get here. Once she was here her first trip to the Dr. ended in an overnight in the isolation ward. As soon as the crooked fucks extorted 5Gs from us for their stupid mistake,having ignoring several hours of my careful explanation in the process she was released with an “oops” and a huge bill. Healthcare for profit , money cures everything.